


Crime Makes Strange Bedfellows

by nennalem (melannen)



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Crimes & Criminals, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, javert is the worst spy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/nennalem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspector Javert is really incredibly bad at undercover work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crime Makes Strange Bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on DW for a meme prompt.

Montparnasse didn't really care about the meeting. It was just going to be whatever particularly rancid scum had floated to the top after Claquesous and Babet were arrested with the rest of them at Thenardier's; the last men standing scrabbling among themselves for scrap. None of it would make a difference to anything, because Claquesous and Babet would be out of jail by the season's turning and everything would be back to business as usual in the Paris underworld.

In the meantime these idiots thought they mattered, and they'd invited Montparnasse because they thought he cared which of them won, and he'd come, but mostly for the entertainment.

He was sitting in one of many dark corners of the cavernous, junk-filled warehouse, listening idly to the conversation around him and not trying to be noticed, when he saw a very familiar top hat rising among the sea of hoods. A top hat and a pair of bushy sideburns and a high coat-collar. It could only be a certain Inspector.

Nobody else seemed to have noticed yet, and the man seemed to think he was being inconspicuous - which meant he hadn't come for arrests. Montparnasse brushed off the minor street robber who was trying to sell him something, and shoved his way through the crowd until he could grab the man by the lapels and drag him into an even more shadowy and secluded alcove among the crumbling shelves and boxes. Then he shoved him up against the wall of crates and cussed him out for an idiot, at length, in the vilest of argot.

The inspector wrapped his long arms around himself and frowned, "I am not a fool," he said, confirming at least that he knew the argot just as well as Montparnasse, "I am under orders to infiltrate this meeting, undercover."

"You're under orders to get yourself killed. Do you think I am the only person here who will recognize you? You cut a... distinctive figure, Inspector."

"And why do you care?"

Montparnasse waved his hands, incensed at the depths of stupidity around him. "Because the rest of these people are idiots! If they knew who you were they would drag you out and shoot you! And then none of us would have any peace, not until the police had taken their revenge out in blood, and I don't--" Speaking of those idiots, he knew that particularly grating voice and thunking footstep; it was Croquembouche, one of the ones who wanted to be king of the sewers, and he was heading straight for them. 

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Montparnasse said, just as the man stuck his head around the corner, and he yanked the Inspector's head down and pulled him into a bruising kiss.

"Montparnasse," Croquembouche said jovially, "I heard you found someone --oh."

Montparnasse turned his head just enough to growl "Fuck off," in his general direction.

"Yes, yes, of course," he said. "I'll just... be over there, if you need me for anything," and he fled like the cockroach he was.

As soon as he was gone the Inspector shoved him violently away and said, "Don't touch me, you pervert, what the hell did you think you were doing?"

Montparnasse smirked and rocked back on his heels. "These people are all terrified of me, because I'm all that's left of Patron-Minette, and because I don't care about them. If they think you're with me, they won't dare touch you, even if they do figure out you're police. You're welcome," he added, and just like that, a policeman owed him a favor. It wouldn't have worked with just any policeman, but Javert was known to follow an idiosyncratic code of honor. Besides, Javert had responded to that kiss - and they both knew Montparnasse had noticed - which gave him yet another advantage.

It'd be nice to have a policeman on a string. He was about 60% certain that Claquesous was working for the police, or at least the Surete. It came in handy, in terms of access, and in terms of making sure the police had absolutely no evidence against him that they could use in court.

He could tell Javert knew what he was thinking, too. If they'd had the evidence they'd've arrested Montparnasse months ago, but he'd always made sure he wasn't on the scene when anything risky was going on: he stuck to planning, and to knives in dark alleys with no witnesses left, and jobs where Claquesous could make the evidence disappear. Javert's superiors probably hadn't thanked him for putting Claquesous behind bars and knocking over the table where they played their carefully arranged game. That was probably why they'd sent him here to get himself killed. Monparnasse could respect that; Montparnasse could respect a man who annoyed the authorities so much that they wanted him quietly dead.

"I'm not thanking you," Javert growled back. But then he said - Montparnasse could hear the gears turning in his head - "You are telling me that if we convince them that I'm with you I will have free access to this gathering."

Montparnasse grinned and grabbed his wrist, and felt his pulse jump at the touch. "Come on, " he said, "I'll show you where the refreshments are." He wasn't sure which would be more fun - playing with a policeman, or watching the rest of them choke on their pride when they saw who he'd brought as a date, and realized they were every one too chickenshit to do anything about it. Entertaining, he thought, would be the least of it.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then they mutually blackmailed each other into fake dating whenever one of them needed a cover, until Javert killed himself, but at least the sex was hot in the meantime, the end.


End file.
